Imputed

[Skinski7]

I agree that John's gospel is written so that a Christian's joy may be full. A Christian can be in fellowship with God or out of fellowship. They can sin and they can not sin. I don't want to say "sin you will and sin you must" I agree that we should be idealistic about the idea that we can not sin, but this idealism isn't absolute.

Rom 7 I think talks both of the unbeliever who has no experience with God and the believer who is struggling. There are too many times where Paul uses the 1 person personak pronoun, "the good that I do", that "which I do". If this were just a hypothetical struggle Paul would have used the past tense or would have referred to another person, not himself.

I recognize that there are scholars on both sides of the issue about Rom. 7, it is too much to say that one is a heretic if they don't believe like you do. One side may overemphasize the struggle, but you are definitely de-emphasizing it.

The wretched man of Romans 7 is not confusing in the slightest. The only reason it causes confusion is because people are trying to fit it into their theology.

Paul is using a grammatical technique called the "historical present." It is a technique used to give emphasis to a point being made. We use this technique in English and it is found quite commonly in ancient Greek literature.

Historical present - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://apaclassics.org/sites/default/files/documents/abstracts/george_1.pdf

If Paul is literally speaking of Himself in the present tense, as a faithful Christian, then that means that salvation leaves one "carnal and sold under sin" which would be a complete contradiction of what Paul writes in Chapter 6 and 8 of Romans. The Bible is a harmonious whole not a book of isolated passages and verses to be proof texted.

Do you really believe that Jesus came to save us from our sins (Mat 1:21), set us free indeed (Joh 8:36), to redeem us from all iniquity and make us pure (Tit 2:14) and leave us as wretches who are carnal and sold under sin?

Sinners are held captive to their sin. The Gospel effects a release from captivity. It is to deny the Gospel to preach a salvation IN sin. It is to deny the power of God to teach that God's salvation leaves one a wretch, carnal and enslaved to sin.

There is no possible way for any person who has genuinely escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, via dying to sin and putting on the mind of Christ, to believe that Paul is teaching that Christian's are wretches. You won't find any of the early church writers presenting the wretched man of Romans 7 as the present Christian walk. That notion was borne out of the introduction of "inability" into Christian doctrine via Augustine of Hippo in the Fourth Century. Augustinian theology disconnects the actual condition of the heart from salvation and thus by necessity teaches that one can be in a wretched state and saved at the same time.

 

[Skinski7]

Hi Skinski7 - I am starting to see what the truth about what you call "inability". My understanding is this - and please comment if you either agree or disagree.

Basing my statement on 1 Cor 10:13, I can see that God controls how much each person is tempted towards sin. So I think it can be said that at each point along a Christians spiritual development (whether newborn or not), the person is able to resist completely the temptation towards sin.

My reasoning is - Since God says in 1 Cor 10:13 that He will control the amount or severity of the temptation at each point in a Christian's life - the severity of the temptation that God allows will be only what the individual Christian can effectively bear at their own particular stage of Christian development.

So we can therefore say that at every point of Christian development the individual Christian is (because God controls the severity of every temptation) completely able to resist all temptation to sin. Whether the Christian chooses to avail themselves of this ability to resist temptation and not sin is their own personal choice.

1Co 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. {common...: or, moderate} (KJV)

This would mean that my original conception about young Christians not having the ability to resist sin because of their inexperience was incorrect.

Respectfully - Brian

I would agree with that hence...

Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Jas 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
...
Jas 1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
Jas 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Jas 1:16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Jas 1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Jas 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
Jas 1:20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
Jas 1:21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
Jas 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
Jas 1:23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
Jas 1:24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
Jas 1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
Jas 1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Jas 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.


This world appears to be a "Test Box" for souls.